LCK May Implement a New Format More Stringent Than Fearless Draft
At the beginning of the 2025 season, LCK, specifically, and League of Legends in general, applied the Fearless Draft format for official matches for the first time. With this new regulation, many “uncommon” champions have had the opportunity to reappear in the professional arena after a long absence, such as Naafiri, Nilah, Warwick, and others. However, there is information suggesting that LCK is being proposed a mechanism even harsher than Fearless Draft, which could worry a range of teams from top contenders to weaker squads.
Specifically, there is news that LCK will apply a new Fearless Draft mechanism, with a rule that any champion banned in 2 consecutive games (in a BO3) or 2 out of 3 games (in a BO5) will be banned in the remaining games.
However, in the proposed format of LCK, there is one caveat: the champion will only be banned if both teams agree to ban it. For example, in the T1 – Gen.G match, if T1 bans the champion Orianna in game 1, and then Gen.G continues to ban this champion in game 2, then Orianna will officially disappear from the remaining matches.
All Teams in LCK Will Face Challenges
Although the format has certain regulations, this means that teams will need to expand their champion pools even more than they currently do. After just 2-3 games, many teams’ pocket picks could be entirely eliminated. For instance, Faker’s Azir or Keria’s Bard. Now, it might only take 2 games for Keria’s Bard to completely disappear from play.
Once key champions are banned, expanding the champion pool is a given. Among the current LCK teams, Gen.G is seen as having players with a very wide champion pool. However, this does not mean that the reigning LCK Cup 2026 champions can be complacent, especially since they have suffered several defeats in the past due to their own overconfidence.